History
Film director and producer Steven Spielberg first began working in animation when he served as executive producer on An American Tail and The Land Before Time, both directed by Don Bluth, as well as Robert Zemeckis's Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Following the successes of all three films, Spielberg planned to collaborate with Bluth again to produce a sequel to An American Tail; however, owing to creative differences, both men parted ways. In light of Bluth's departure, Spielberg chose former Disney animator Phil Nibbelink and former Richard Williams storyboard artist Simon Wells, the great-grandson of science-fiction author H. G. Wells, both of whom had previously worked with him as supervising animators on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, to direct the sequel, Fievel Goes West.[1] In order to produce the film, Spielberg formed Amblimation, a collaboration between Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment, which was based out of the former Eaton Yale and Towne factory in Acton, London, and had an international crew of 250 members from 15 different nations.[6][9] Fievel Goes West was officially put into production when the studio first opened in May 1989, and at the time, the studio was also developing We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, an animated adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats[1] and an animated adaptation of William Steig's book Shrek!
As production on Fievel Goes West was wrapping up, Nibbelink and Wells began storyboarding on We're Back!. Once the animatic for We're Back! was completed in 1991, Spielberg brought in brothers Dick and Ralph Zondag to continue directing it, and assigned Nibbelink and Wells to direct Cats, which was intended to be Amblimation's third film after We're Back!. However, production on Cats was delayed continuously, due to Webber's dissatisfaction with the story direction.[10] Eventually, Cats was scrapped, and Nibbelink and Wells returned to finish We're Back!. However, shortly afterwards, Wells left the project again to direct Balto, leaving Nibbelink to finish We're Back! alone. Ultimately, We're Back! was a box-office bomb, grossing just over $9 million and failing to reach the massive success of Jurassic Park, which Spielberg had released the previous summer.[11]
The commercial failure of We're Back! led to budgetary constraints on Balto, and would lead to it being Amblimation's final film.[12] In October 1994, Spielberg co-founded DreamWorks Pictures with former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and music executive David Geffen, and relocated 120 of Amblimation's crew members to Los Angeles as Balto neared completion, to form DreamWorks Animation.[13][14] In early June 1995, Edgar Bronfman, Jr., then-head of Universal's parent company at the time, Seagram, agreed to discontinue Amblimation as part of a distribution deal with Geffen, despite the objections of his colleague, Michael Ovitz.[15] After Balto failed at the box office, Amblimation was officially closed, and most of the remaining crew members joined DreamWorks to begin working on The Prince of Egypt, while some moved on to join other studios.[16]
